ROUNDUP POSTS

Opinion Roundup. Ask influencers on their opinion or answers on one question. Round up their answers into an article. Then, ask them to share the article for more traffic. Roundup posts can lead to a shit ton of shares.

Influencer Roundup. Round up influencers in your niche who have achieved something cool and write a post about it.

Curated Roundup. A roundup of the top articles, podcasts or resources in your niche.

LIST POSTS

Basic List. One of the most popular types of content out there, a basic list is a quick read under 1200 words.

Expanded List. 1500+ word list posts that expand upon each of the points.

Methods List. List all the methods you can think of to get one result.

Tools List. List and rank the tools to get something done. Break out to best FREE tools and best PAID tools.

Checklist. Create a checklist and form it into a blog post.

FEAR MONGERING POSTS

Warning Post. Warn your readers about something they weren’t aware of. Provide information on how the reader can deal with the warning.

Mistakes Post. Share the common mistakes that people are making on your topic.

“What You’re Doing Wrong” Post. Share one thing that most people are getting wrong about your topic, and show them what to do instead.

Myth Busting Post. Debunk a popular myth in your niche (and back up why it’s not true).

Glossary Post. Create a glossary for the beginners in your niche to learn all the terms.

Hate running out of ideas on what to blog about? Get the 60 Blog Post Ideas PDF so you can refer to it anywhere anytime.

I’ve even included quick-start guide on how to generate foolproof blog post ideas based on each category.

Ready?

How to Come Up With Things to Blog About—and Build Your Content Calendar

1. HOW-TO POST

The “How To” post outperformed all other article types by a longshot, responsible for nearly 23% of the traffic to the most popular articles.

This is the cornerstone, evergreen content that teaches readers how to do something specific related to your niche. These articles can overlap with the Ultimate Guide (the #10 most popular type of content).

Check out how Herb.co uses how-to guides to teach a specific process:

And how Bulletproof uses them for content marketing on their blog, too:

It’s not surprising that “How To” content garnishes so much attention. Who hasn’t Googled how to do something recently?

This is good news for search engine traffic to your “How To” content, but since you’re educating your readers, it’s also extremely shareable.

2. LIST POST

Whether this will work for you depends on your niche and the size of your site. Sumo wouldn’t do very well with simple list posts, but Success.com does:

59% of people will share an article without even reading it, and since list posts are easy to scan and instantly gratifying (even when you just see the headline!) these bad boys are shared constantly, contributing to the traffic.

Not sure what type of list post to create?

Find a content analysis tool like BuzzSumo (nope, we’re not brothers) and type in a popular blog in your niche’s URL. Let’s say you were in the travel niche:

You can then filter the results by published year and sort by total shares. (You need a paid plan to do this.)

These are proven topics in your niche for garnishing attention, shares, and likely traffic.

Don’t copy them, but use them as inspiration for your list post. Here are some prompts:

3. EXPLANATORY POST

The explanatory post is #3 on the top 10 types of blog posts to create, driving over 20,000,000 hits over the 27 top sites we analyzed.

In this blog post idea, break something complex down and explain it so your readers can understand.

For example, this article on Big Think uses the explanatory post to go into the science of a surprisingly common question:

Another great example is an explanatory article on Dean’s blog:

In these blog posts, you’re educating your audience and setting yourself apart as an authority in your niche.

These explanatory posts are linkable assets (meaning other bloggers and resources in your niche are likely to link to you as value-adds for their readers) which also happen to be evergreen, cornerstone content.

Trying to figure out what to explain but coming up short? I’ve got you.

Pull up a subreddit in your niche. Let’s say you’re in the weight loss niche. I’ll use /r/loseit as an example.

The Quick Way: Type “why does” and “how do” in the search bar (keep the quotes so it filters just for those exact match terms).

Start scrolling through the results to find the top questions people have in the niche:

In this case, you might create an explanatory post answering the following questions:

Why you should never starve yourself

How fasting works in weight loss

Being fat doesn’t make you a bad but...

The Better Way: Scroll through the subreddit and open the threads. Read through the questions and struggles the redditors are experiencing.

Pro Tip: For bigger, well-established subreddits, check out the sidebar to find resources like FAQ.

Each of those questions is like a golden, viral nugget for your blog handed to you on a silver platter, giving you a chance to educate about your topic. Write about them.

4. WARNING POST

In the fourth spot, the “Warning Post” drove 17 million hits to our sample sites, and this one makes sense:

Warnings are difficult to ignore.

In this post, you’ll “warn” readers of something that they probably didn’t know about. For example, David Wolfe warns readers that Google is recording them:

And Mind Body Green warns readers about a side effect of tattoos:

As an expert on your topic, it can be tough to think of what your readers might not know about, so to think of blog post ideas under this article type, use Google Scholar.

Type in “recent studies on [topic]” (for example, nutrition):

And filter for a recent date (Since 2015, 2018, or 2019).

Most people don’t know about the recent science in your field (probably not even you!) so this is an opportunity.

In this example, you might read some of the papers and write:

Warning! What Diet Has to Do with Colon Cancer

Everything You Need to Know About Personalized Nutrition

Gui Microbiota Plays a Critical Role (More Than You Think) in Your Health

Another way to come up with Warning article topics is to think of a common misconception in your field, and warn people about the truth.

5. CELEBRITY REVEALED POST

The Celebrity Revealed Post is an article that “reveals” something about somebody famous in your niche.

This post type attracts readers who want to know some secret information on the celebrity.

To create this type of content, you don’t have to know the celebrity personally or even have insider information. But you should choose a celebrity who is popular in your niche right now.

Chris used this blog post type in his Tony Robbins article, the most shared article in 2017 on Sumo’s blog:

To create Celebrity Revealed posts, think of a top influencer in your niche.

If you’re out of the loop, bring up a top magazine-style publication in your niche (example: Entrepreneur.com for business) and visit their homepage. Let’s say you were in the beauty niche:

I didn’t have to go far to find Jennifer Lawrence (Vogue wouldn’t have put her as the main feature if she wasn’t big right now).

Then, type in “how does [celebrity name]” into Google for autocomplete:

You could write a Celebrity Revealed post about how Jennifer Lawrence styles her hair.

To write the article properly, you could quote some interviews she’s done with others, find hairstyles she’s worn in images, and link to tutorials (or create your own) on how to copy the hairstyle.

Pro Tip: Add a verb behind your search term for more results. “How does [celebrity name] do” came up with different results than just “how does [celebrity name]“:

If you have insider information or you could reveal something negative about a “villain” in your niche, use this as an opportunity as well.

6. BREAKING NEWS POST

This article type won’t be part of your regular rotation unless you’re a news or politics site, but the Breaking News post brought in over 12 million visits for our sample sites, and allow you to ride trending topics on social media, increasing your visibility.

One example is The Drive’s usage of the Breaking News post to share something relevant in their industry:

You don’t need exclusive information to report on breaking news, but you do have to be on top of your niche.

To set up a system so you don’t always have to be checking Google News for new info, set up a Google alert with some keywords in your industry:

You’ll get an email when those terms are mentioned.

To get the most benefit from a breaking news article, you should write about the news within 24 hours of it emerging.

Check on Twitter and Facebook’s Trend’s sections before you publish and make sure you’re using appropriate terms to take advantage of the trending topic.

7. EXPANDED LIST POST

Alright, so let’s say your niche doesn’t do well with the listicle. Because, you know, you’re not Buzzfeed.

But list posts are #2 on the list of the most popular types of content for traffic, and you don’t want to miss out on the magical unicorn effect they have.

For the “When”, you might list out 5 of the cheapest months to travel, and under each point, include:

An example of one of the best travel deals in that month.

Some of the best locations to visit during those months.

Data and stats on travel volume during that month.

Where to go to find the best deals for that month.

Expanded list posts tend to work in niches where traditional list posts don’t.

8. CONTROVERSIAL POST

Controversy sells.

There’s no surprise there. So it’s also not surprising that this one made it into the top 10 traffic-driving blog post ideas.

But how do you come up with an idea of something controversial to write?

We’ll take it to Reddit again for this one.

Visit a subreddit related to your niche. (Example: Parenting). Many subreddits have a default “Controversial” tab, which displays the threads that are both upvoted and downvoted a lot. Filter for that tab:

Not every thread will truly be controversial without reading them, but many of the title’s of the threads give themselves away.

In the Parenting topic, some topics include:

Daycare is too expensive!

Having kids are overwhelming

“Spoiling” your baby with holding them too much (believe it or not, this is a controversial topic).

Write a controversial piece arguing for the side you know your target audience stands by (which you’ll know from their psychographics).

Nervous to post something controversial? Don’t be. You’ll repel the people who were never going to follow you anyway, and become magnetic for your target audience.

9. FAQ POST

The most shared content is long-form (3000 words and up).

But shares does not always equal traffic, and this short-form post idea proves that.

Coming in at #9 of the best types of content is the FAQ post. This is when you answer a question that’s frequently asked by your target audience.

These articles are not usually long or revolutionary, but they’re useful. They’re easily referenced in other content (for example, ultimate guides).

A huge benefit to the FAQ post is that the terms can drive tons of search engine traffic, as they have very high search volumes but very low competition.

To draw on another example from Herb.co, they used the FAQ post to get tons of search engine traffic:

Ranking #1 for a very high volume search term:

The SEO potential (medium keyword difficulty and relatively high search volume) for these FAQ posts undoubtedly contributes to how much traffic they drive.

Not sure where to start?

You can find plenty of topic ideas by using Answer the Public. Type in your keyword or topic in the search bar. For example, if you had a blog about budgeting:

And the tool drums up autocomplete data based on that keyword:

Displaying dozens of blog post ideas for FAQ posts.

In this case, you could write about:

Why you should create a budget

How to create a budget when you’re self employed or have income fluctuations

How to create a budget when you’re paid weekly.

That’s enough blog post ideas to last you for years if you publish weekly.

Pro Tip: Also enter the plural and verb-tenses of the term for other FAQs. For example, when I searched “budgeting” instead of “budget”, I got different results:

10. ULTIMATE GUIDE

The ultimate guide is the ultimate article idea.

It’s a cornerstone, evergreen type of content that covers everything you need to know about a specific topic.

Our guide guide on Instagram marketing is one of the most highly trafficked articles of 2016, but also drove almost 10,000 email signups and was #2 on the top sales-driving pieces of content published last year.

This is where you go in depth into a topic, covering pretty much everything the reader needs to know.

Ultimate guides can be step-by-step processes or comprehensive, informational guides. Because they go deep on one thing, choose a broader topic for your ultimate guide.

Done right, they are linkable assets and attract a lot of attention. So if you truly create the ultimate guide on your topic you can expect to rank decently for the term.

Start by using your favorite keyword research tool (we use Ahrefs) to plug in a search term related to your topic. Let’s say you’re in the baby sleep niche:

If your keyword difficulty is still in the green (ie it’s “easy”), write an ultimate guide on that search term -- ie “The Ultimate Guide to Baby Sleep Training”.

But if it’s more competitive, check under the “Keyword ideas by search volume” section:

These are ripe opportunities for ultimate guides. In our example, you could write:

Pro Tip: Use this newly created linkable asset to link to your other articles for higher search engine visibility.

Never Run Out of Blog Post Ideas Again

We just covered a lot of ground.

I gave you 60 blog post ideas that actually work, revealed the top 10 ideas that drove the most hits on popular websites, and showed you exactly how to generate hundreds of article ideas step-by-step using a simple, proven framework.

Now you never have to read another article on getting blog post ideas or stare at a blank screen ever again.